Published 4:00 am, Saturday, August 12, 2000

2000-08-12 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- Filing closed yesterday for San Francisco's November 7 district elections for supervisor, and with 90 candidates in the field, you won't be able to tell the players without a very long scorecard.

The 11 contests range from just one candidate in ritzy District 2, which includes Pacific Heights, where Supervisor Gavin Newsom will run for re-election unopposed, to a huge field of 18 in District 6, which covers several neighborhoods including the booming South of Market.

Candidates who manage to get a majority of the votes cast in their districts will avoid runoffs December 12. But political insiders give only two candidates a really good shot at winning outright, Newsom and Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who is board president.

In addition, 13 candidates filed to run for the school board and 13 for the community college board.

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The coming supervisorial campaign will be a rerun of December's bitter mayoral runoff, in which Mayor Willie Brown ultimately won a comfortable victory over Ammiano. This time, the two have endorsed candidates in the district races, and their foot soldiers and money will play key roles in getting out the vote.

The issues that candidates are zeroing in on are also familiar, as the city struggles to figure out how to cope with the unprecedented economic growth that is transforming neighborhoods, for better or worse.

"It's housing, housing, housing," said Eileen Hansen, the Ammiano- backed candidate running against Brown ally Supervisor Mark Leno in District 8. "It's displacement, affordability and preserving neighborhood character, and that means finding ways for small businesses to be able to stay put."

In District 10, Linda Richardson, who is backed by Brown, said, "It's about trying to manage growth. It's about housing and employment. Unemployment is still too high in my district."

David Lee of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee said district elections are bringing out more candidates of different ethnicities, with about a dozen Chinese American candidates, some Latinos, several African Americans and other groups represented as well. Running is one thing, but winning is another.

"District elections have encouraged people from the ethnic communities to run, but whether they get elected is another question," said Lee, who with Jim Ross of Solem and Associates has prepared an in-depth demographic report of each district. "Some districts are majority-ethnic but are low turnout. The high turnout areas in those districts tend to be white and affluent."

Lee also pointed out that independent "soft money" campaigns, such as those put on last fall by labor and business groups to help Brown, could play a huge role in the district elections, especially in runoffs.

"The time is short in the runoff campaigns and candidates will have shot their wads of money," Lee said. "So independent expenditures will come into play and make an impact."